Gemma Marmalade’s Fish Wives — Reviewed
Sarah Creed talks Italian street fights, patriarchal hierarchies and avoiding pigeon-holing, with award-winning emerging artist Gemma Marmalade…
Having seen Gemma Marmalade’s work in The Photographers’ Gallery 2012 FreshFaced+WildEyed exhibition, I thought I knew what to expect when I arrived at her debut performance at the Ceri Hand Gallery. Her photographic work, such as Strange Birds (2011) and Animal (2008), hold a link between the human and animalistic side of our personalities and how this influences our actions as human beings, as well as her own views on gender and humour.
This knowledge of her, I thought, allowed me to draw a conclusion of what was to come my way as the clock struck 2pm. How very wrong I was.
Circling each other like cowboys at high noon, Gemma Marmalade, and her dueller, Mel, created an atmosphere of hate, fear, emotion and theatre on the tarmac of Copperfield Street, all to the stunning sound of a live operatic performance – perhaps a nod to the piece’s Italian origins (which I’ll get to)?
Pelting each other with prawns, squid, and other unidentifiable small (and occasionally large!) fish, the women devised and communicated a performance full of passion and aggression, captivating the crowd with little more than physical and facial expressions. The triumphant conclusion declared Gemma winner, and whether that was due to the fact she simply was the better woman on the day, or that she emerged with a fish the size of an 8 year old child, remains unclear…
What I found most memorable and captivating about the performance, however, was not the artists’ actions, but their impact on the surrounding crowd. The visceral, often animalistic, response of the crowd screaming “hit her Gemma!”; “smash her in the face!”; “push her over!” – was at times slightly unsettling and the underlying mob-culture that seemed to be rearing its head would not have been ill placed in an episode of Charlie Brooker’s Black Mirror.
Further investigation revealed that this brand new street performance originated from an historical ritual performed on the island of Linosa, Italy, where each year the opposing matriarchs of the island would fight each other with fish until a winner was declared, establishing a hierarchy between the island’s families.
This display of feminine power and aggression is as apt today as it was back on the island of Linosa, as woman still fight to prove themselves within aspects of society that are still heavily influenced by patriarchy. I left the performance feeling elated, shocked, empowered and impressed. It left me wanting to know more about where Gemma wished to go with her performance art, and more confusingly, with a subliminal desire for a huge plate of fish!
I caught up with Gemma Marmalade post-performance to learn a little more about what inspired the spectacle I’d just witnessed…
You were selected as one of the FreshFaced+WildEyed artists in 2012 – what has been the legacy of that selection and exhibition for you?
FreshFaced+WildEyed was and still is a very important juncture in my emerging career. Not only did it allow my work to move quickly out of the student context and into a formal exhibition space, it has provided essential exposure critically and professionally.
Having been selected for the mentoring programme which was piloted for the first time in my year group, I have been fortunate to work directly with Karen Newman (formerly of Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool). This has been a fantastic opportunity to work with someone within the industry and develop professional networks to help my practice reach the widest critical audience. Not only this, Karen has become a friend and mentor whom I can discuss things with candidly and has helped me demystify some elements of the art world.
Your photography is very performative in its nature. What made you make the move from performative photography to actual performance with Fish Wives?
Performance is most certainly a reoccurring factor in my practice and that comes from a very instinctive part of my visual response. However, I am not dictated by medium. My work is driven by the concept and to some extent, the concept provides its own ‘legs’ in the direction of how the work ultimately manifests.
The initial idea behind Fish Wives was to make a video piece but after a freezing December morning on a Norfolk beach filming with some particularly hardy colleagues, it became very clear that the visceral experience of the smell, sound and even the tangibility of pain was such a pervasive element, it had to be incorporated into the work itself.
The decision to make a live performance was also made easier by knowing it would take my practice in a slightly different direction. It was, to some extent, also a conscious move not to be pinned down by the medium of Strange Birds, the work which had already received such critical acclaim. This could have been a gamble for some, as there is a fear, particularly when a career is in its infancy, that a seeming volte-face could jeopardise the built audience. However, it has always been my sole intention to create work with the integrity an idea is born with and not to force it into a career driven format.
What was it about the story of the Linosa housewives that struck a chord with you? Was it the idea of matriarchal power, or the theatrical nature of using actual fish?
Both! The story of the Linosian women spoke so much to me about the theatre of feminist expression… I see their ritual as an extremely powerful and relevant response to contemporary issues, for women in general and in the arts. Despite the alleged status of gender equality in the 21st Century, the art world still represents an imbalance with men taking career prominence over women. The act of two women competitively beating each other goes to serve as a metaphorical gesture that women have to do every day, either to be seen or adequately acknowledged.
Having staged this slice of history as a ‘street fight’ contains all of those evocative elements of historical matriarchal dominance but also subverts the notion of the sporting event which is almost always considered a masculine pastime. The operatic accompaniment takes on an aural formalisation of the sports commentator hybridised with the referee. It purposefully adds gravitas with the female voice singing ‘Vissi d’arte’ (to die for art) and nods to the steeped Italian tradition of opera. The fish take the final metaphorical element as a symbol of fertility, sustenance, labour, commodity and indeed the reference to the odours of female genitalia.
What’s next for Gemma Marmalade?
I hope to perform Fish Wives in different locations over the coming year to expand the audience and the overwhelmingly positive reception I have gained so far. There is also a new project afoot called Green Fingered which explores the unique pheromonal properties of lesbians in the precipitation of plant growth. This will be emerging at some point during 2014.
Last, but by no means least – what is your best tip for getting rid of fish smell??
This, I can assure, is a very vital question! To answer this, it is important to understand why fish smell in the first place. In order to counter the saltiness of sea water, the cells of all sea creatures are full of acids and amines, trimethylamine oxide (aka TMAO) being the main one. When the fish dies, bacterial enzymes attack the flesh, the muscle containing TMAO begins to decompose causing trimethylamine (TMA) to emit which is the fishy smell. So, the moral to this story is use fresh fish as they smell less, wash fish well, use a steel soap on the hands with lemon infused water, or, if you’re planning to fight with them, have several showers followed by a long bath!
Sarah Creed
Gemma Marmalade graduated from an MA in Photography at the London College of Communication with Distinction in 2011. Her first solo exhibition was for the Apulia Film Commission in Bari, Italy and most recently she has been selected to exhibit at FreshFaced+WildEyed 2012 at the Photographers’ Gallery, London (prize winner), Future Map 2012 and Ceri Hand Gallery.
View Gemma Marmalade’s Strange Birds, 2011, video triptych
